New public art installed in the windows of the Audain Gallery at Simon Fraser University plays on the idea of the university as a creator of knowledge and learning.
It’s called The Primary Education of the Autodidact. One of those multisyllabic Greek words that have come into English, autodidact is the kind of impressive word most often seen in text rather than heard in conversation. These days, most people would probably use the synonym self-taught instead of autodidact.
The use of a Greek word and the historical link to the origins of Western knowledge in Ancient Greece is probably no accident given that the installation is by Raqs Media Collective, the brainy three-artist group from New Delhi.
The Primary Education of the Autodidact faces out onto the sidewalk along the first floor of the SFU Woodward’s building at 149 West Hastings. Composed of related photos in 11 panels, they show various stacks of oversized books, some on their sides, some with their spines showing. But these books are unusual. Where you’d expect to see the titles and names of authors, there’s nothing written at all. The words are all gone, leaving blank covers devoid of words.
There is something else going on. In addition to the stacks of books are four silhouetted shadows. They show a woman holding what looks like the handle of a broom. She’s a cleaner of some kind, the kind of person who does manual labour. Hers is the kind of knowledge usually isn’t associated with a university where books have traditionally been where knowledge has resided. As well, her knowledge usually isn’t valued all that much in a capitalist society where it can’t be packaged and sold.
She’s most fully visible on the lowest level where her dark shadow is dominated by the white book spine behind her — a possible comment on the ethnicity of many cleaners and janitorial workers in western society.
Another shadow shows only a hand holding up the broom handle that’s almost hidden because it runs parallel with the other spines. The way it’s held aloft, it looks like a gesture of defiance.
The fact that the shadow is a woman’s is no accident. Look up autodidact and there are numerous references to famous ones in history such as Leonardo da Vinci, Frank Lloyd Wright and Jorge Luis Borges. They’re all men but it seems difficult to believe that almost all autodidacts have only been male. Could it be that her knowledge, and women’s knowledge generally, has historically been unable fit into the pages of a book and therefore not been considered of value in educating an autodidact?
“The autodidact may be at a loss for words, but she has other ideas,” Raqs said in its description of their work.
“Her books are unwritten, but not unread. There are some things that need saying that words can never say. There begins the primary education of the autodidact. No prayers, no petitions, no apologies – just acts that surf potential waves, creating new terms for thinking, knowing, and being in the world.”
Raqs said that “entire provinces of knowledge” are still awaiting understanding.
“They call out for decipherment, insisting that the more we know, the more we know what we do not know.”
Raqs Media Collective is a collaborative project by Jeebesh Bagchi, Monica Narula and Shuddhabrata Sengupta. They work in a dizzying variety of ways that includes being artists, filmmakers, writers, curators, researcher and event organizers. They have shown around the world at major institutions and have participated in the Venice, Liverpool, Shanghai and Sao Paulo biennials and Documenta 11 in Kassel.
Raqs was commissioned to create the installation in the windows of the SFU gallery by the Audain Gallery in partnership with Indian Summer Festival of Arts & Ideas. The festival is dedicated to fostering cultural connections between Canada and India. It runs from July 5 to 15.
Sabine Bitter, an artist and curator of SFU’s Audain Gallery, said she has known about and been fascinated by Raqs’ multidisciplinary approach for years.
“Their ideas of art and what art could be lines up with how we teach about art here as critical thinking, material practice and a discursive platform,” she said.
“Raqs always interested me personally because of their specific practice of having a very strong material and aesthetic sense and at the same time, they work as writers, they work as curators. In a very open and rigorous way, they negotiate these different parts together.”
Bitter said The Primary Education of the Autodidact happens to coincide with the Audain Gallery’s mandate. It’s goal is to not only to teach and pass on knowledge to the community, but also for members of the community to teach and pass on knowledge to the students and teachers at SFU Woodward’s.

The Primary Education of the Autodidact continues at the Audain Gallery, 149 West Hastings, at SFU Woodward’suntil Monday, Sept. 4. The gallery will be closed until September.

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